THE pioneering Scottish food writer F Marian McNeill, who lived from 1885 until 1973, had a profound effect on Scots cuisine and her first book, The Scots Kitchen, kindled a national pride in our own natural larder and a revolt against the "age of standardisation" that was at large even back then.
Crowdie, grouse, hen's broth, kale and partan Bree were just some of the indigenous dishes she recorded for posterity. Then came fast food burgers, haute cuisine and a fascination with molecular gastronomy.
Scroll forward more than a century, and Scotland's youngest Michelin-starred chef Tom Kitchin is one again waxing lyrical about the joys of Scots pigs' trotters, ox cheek and bone marrow. He has become the first chef to devise three "heritage" dishes, including sheep's heid broth, for the upmarket department store John Lewis, drawing on 150-year-old archives at the National Library of Scotland for inspiration.
What is going on? Why the rush to noshtalgia and food that reminds us of times past? Maybe, just maybe, we've learned the lessons from horsegate and come to accept that granny did know best after all.
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